Green’s Dictionary of Slang

bed n.

[metonymy]

the world of sex; sexual intercourse; thus bedmanship, sexual proficiency.

[Rape of the Bride 14: All these agree, with one Accord, / You’re bonny and buxom at Bed and Board].
[US]J.H. Griffin the Devil rides outside 174: I married a woman because we slept well together. [...] . I have everything most men want—money, social prestige, success in my field, a good bed.
‘Andrew Shaw’ Campus Tramp 151: [S]he had thrown herself into the scholarship game with the same zeal she had previously devoted to learning the finer points of [...] bedmanship.
[US] in E. Cray Erotic Muse (1992) 296: We go to college, we major in bed, / Ten to a dorm, not one maidenhead.
[US](con. 1949) J.G. Dunne True Confessions (1979) 67: She took bed for granted, knew more about it, in fact, than he could concoct in his wildest dreams.

In derivatives

beddies (n.) (also beddie)

bed, in the context of a place for sex.

[US]Baker et al. CUSS 78: Beddie Bed.
[UK]‘P.B. Yuill’ Hazell and the Three-card Trick (1977) 186: On balance you’re worth more to me in readies than in beddies.

In compounds

bed athlete (n.) (also bed-bounder, bedroom athlete)

(orig. US) a promiscuous person.

[[UK]R. Brome Eng. Moor III i: That I may [...] Triumph / Over the lustful stallions of our time: / Bed-bounders, and leap-Ladies].
M. Spillane I, the Jury 120: Mary [...] looked me over from top to bottom. ‘You look like an athlete if I ever saw one.’ ‘What kind?’ I joked. ‘A bed athlete’.
[US]Northwest Rev. 1:1-2:4 16: He proves himself [...] a bedroom athlete equal to Kerouac’s young bohemians.
[US]W. Goldhurst Contours of Experience 184: Elmer Gantry [is the] bedroom athlete, the coldly seductive Don Juan who, by loving all women, rationalizes a murderous inability to love anyone.
Publishers Weekly (US) 3 Apr. 20: Chester Himes, ex-convict, jewel thief, bedroom athlete [...] but above all writer.
P. Davies All Played Out 265: he had, however, the biggest cock in the history of the human race, and when it came to being a bed athlete, was really quite prodigious.
D.O. Dyer, Sr Option Seven 🌐 Look, Tony, I was a pretty good professional football player. I’m a good bed athlete too.
Lois Roden’s Astrodatabank 🌐 The Sun/Pluto con. dictates a person (Sun) of power (Pluto) but also a person who has an obsessive desire for sex. I suspect that the Mars/Venus con. plus the Sun/Pluto con. would make him quite the bedroom athlete, as Pluto also is the ruler of sexuality.
bedbait (n.) [var. on jailbait n. (1)]

(US) an underage sexual partner, who can be of either sex although most often a teenage girl.

Partridge in Words at War, Words at Peace.
bedbug (n.)

see separate entry.

bedhop (v.)

to live a sexually promiscuous life; thus bedhopping n. and adj.

[US]Westerly 1:3-4 33: [B]ed-hopping. Boring boring boring.
[US]W. Wasserstrom Heiresas of All the Ages 102: [T]he turgid muscularity and female bed-hopping of the twenties and thirties.
[UK]J. Wain Nuncle 169: [I was] in for a bit of rather tired bed-hopping. Largely to convince myself that I wasn't past it. What happened wasn’t always too convincing, but I put that down to the drink.
[US]Film Bulletin 38 12: [B]ed-hopping and wife-swapping.
Alistair Cooke on PBS 21 Dec. [TV] In between the bed-hoppings [etc.].
[US]Time 5 June 61: Lesley Anne Down graduated to playing [...] a bed-hopping socialite.
[UK]T. Blacker Fixx 51: Never [...] have I encountered bedhopping on the scale it took place at Melton Hall.
posting at Keen Forums 4 Apr. 🌐 Don’t get drunk, don’t bedhop, just get Blotto. Seven days a week!
bed-house (n.) [house n.1 (1)]

1. (US) a ‘short-time’ hotel or assignation house.

[US]Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 9 Apr. n.p.: There are so many bed-houses and places of assignation, where bawds pleasure crowns the labors of the day.
[US]N.E. Police Gaz. (Boston, MA) 10 Aug. n.p.: Margaret and her ‘cousin Peter’ were on their way to a bed house’ [and] the girl received a V for her trouble [...] Mag has slept with a male friend at an assignation house .
[US]G.G. Foster N.Y. by Gas-Light (1990) 195: The bloated night-walker [...] who lives by pacing the purlieus of the Points or Water street all night, and enticing drunken negroes, sailors or loafers into two-shilling bed-houses.
[US]J.D. McCabe Lights & Shadows 523: [T]here are [in New York] about 5000 women of ill-fame, known as such, living in 600 houses of prostitution, and frequenting assignation and bed-houses.
[US]Laws of Wisconsin (Statutes) §348.351: [A] house of prostitution, bed house, room, or any other place for any unlawful purpose.

2. (US black) a brothel.

Whip & Satirist (NY) 23 July n.p.: Her den is a bed house, and is the resort of the most low and vulgar of those dangerous characters who nightly infest this neghborhood.
[US]Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 24 June 3/4: He met a fascinating demoiselle [who] invited him to a bed-house kept by a woman named Annie Valentine.
see sense 1.
[US]Wentworth & Flexner DAS.
[US]Trimble 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases.
[US]Maledicta IX 148: The compilers ought to have looked farther afield and found: […] barrel house, bawdy house, bed house, broad house.
bed-presser (n.)

1. a whoremonger, a womanizer.

[UK]Shakespeare Henry IV Pt 1 II iv: [of Falstaff] This bed-presser [...] this huge hill of flesh.
[US](con. 1900s) C. McKay Banana Bottom 144: ‘Pudenda!’ he ejaculated [...] ‘Stop your Spanish obscenity, you licentious Panama bed-presser,’ said the minister.
Partridge Shakespeare’s Bawdy 79: bed-presser. A fornicator; a whoremonger or womanizer.

2. a dull and heavy man; a lazy man.

[UK]Manchester Times 11 Nov. 5/2: Your bear is a highly accomplished bed-presser.
[UK]Manchester Courier 9 Oct. 8/5: Mr Tree was a perfect mountain of man, a huge bed-presser.

3. a prostitute.

[UK]Farmer & Henley Sl. & Its Analogues (rev’d edn) 173: bed-sister, bed-presser, bed-piece and bed-fagot: see tart.
[UK]Partridge DSUE (8 edn).
bed-sit (n.)

see separate entry.

In phrases

bed and breakfast (n.)

see separate entry.

on a bed ride (adj.)

(N.Z. prison) confined to one’s cell through sickness.

[NZ]D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 15/1: on a bed ride to be confined to one's cell for medical reasons.
wreck a bed (v.)

(US campus) to have sexual intercourse.

[US]Eble Campus Sl. Apr. 11: wreck a bed – engage in energetic sex.

SE in slang uses

In phrases

in bed with (adj.) (also in bed together)

(orig. US) allied or associated with, usu. implying nefarious activities.

[US]R. Starnes Flypaper War 79: ‘[A]ll the oil companies on earth are in bed with each other’.
[US]E. Torres Carlito’s Way 79: I knew Don Jorge was in bed with Amadeo.
[US]E. Torres After Hours 72: Do you think we would be in bed together if I didn’t have faith in you?
[UK]A. Payne ‘Senior Citizen Caine’ in Minder [TV script] 31: Now that we’re in bed together -- [...] Business-wise, Johnny, business-wise.
[US](con. 1933) G. Pelecanos Big Blowdown (1999) 21: All you Greeks are in bed with Roosevelt.
[US](con. 1986) G. Pelecanos Sweet Forever 203: If Tutt’s in bed with Tyrell [...] then you know the two of them have go to hook up to talk about damage control.
[UK]K. Waterhouse Soho 49: I’m half in bed with a guy in LA whose name I daren’t even breathe.
[US](con. 1962) E. Bunker Stark 13: Because of a stupid bust [...] he was in bed with the cops.
[US](con. 1973) C. Stella Johnny Porno 52: The ones in bed with the mob over stolen cars, and guys [...] running interference for the porn business.
put to bed (v.)

1. (US) to trail a subject until they return home and stay there.

[US]N.Y. Times 31 Jan. 27/6–7: The first night he shook off our detectives after they had followed him less than a block, but the next evening we put a ‘tail’ on him, and thus contrived to ‘put him to bed,’ as we call it.
[US]Ersine Und. and Prison Sl.
[US]A. Hynd We Are the Public Enemies 154: Peggy Cavanagh, the Cleveland Waitress, was being awakened in the morning and put to bed at night, as they say in detective circles.
[US]Goldin et al. DAUL 169/2: Put the clown to bed. To follow a small town cop home before committing crime.
[US]W.R. Burnett Cool Man 97: He intended to wait Willie out, and, in the language of the police on tail, put Willie to bed.

2. to perform a task until it is concluded, esp. used of newspaper editions/columns.

[US]W.R. Burnett Conant 61: That night Mike put the column to bed at eleven o’clock.
[US]J.W. Dean III Blind Ambition 144: ‘I’m going to stay on until we put Watergate to bed’.

3. (US und.) to deal with, dispose of.

[US]C. Stella Joey Piss Pot 240: ‘That fugazy mustache will put that bullshit drug charge to bed. It was a setup’.

4. to consume a drink.

[Scot]T. Black Gutted 135: I put the double to bed smartish, let the pint go down slower.
put to bed with a mattock (and tucked up with a spade) (adj.) [SE mattock and spade, tools for digging graves]

dead and buried.

[[UK]M. Stevenson Norfolk Drollery 85: For he is still, though he be dead, / But in a manner put to bed].
[UK]Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
[UK]Lex. Balatronicum.
[UK]Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
[UK](con. early 19C) W.H. Ainsworth Rookwood 179: Long after I’m done for — put to bed with a mattock and tucked up with a spade.
put to bed with a shovel (v.) (also put to bed with a pickaxe and shovel, put to bed with a spade)

to murder; to bury.

J. Mapletoft Select Proverbs 110: The greatest King must at last go to Bed with a Shovel or Spade.
J. Smythe Rival Modes 3: George: Dead! How? Hen. Of a several things. Of a Dropsy; of four Apothecaries - and of a Tuesday - Which being over, after I had put her to Bed with a Shovel [...] I felt within me that pleasing Satisfaction which all Husbands feel when their Wives can feel no more.
[UK]Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
[UK]Derby Mercury 11 Aug. 4/1: If this Corsican Chief, / should come o’er like a Thief [...] And his Army of Slaves, should by Chance ’scape the Waves, / Then we’ll put them to bed witha Spade.
[UK]Lex. Balatronicum.
[UK]Morn. Chron. (London) 7 Aug. 4/2: They had not lived on good terms lately; he often told her that he would stick her, and be the end of her, that he would put her to bed with a spade.
[Ire]Dublin Morn. Register 13 Aug. 4/3: D—n your old eye, if we thought you had known us last night we would have ‘put you to bed with a spade’.
[US]‘Jack Downing’ Andrew Jackson 150: An undeservin person who hadn’t put all ’em are Inglish tu bed with a shovel, when he had 'em in his power.
[UK]R. Barham ‘The Babes in the Wood’ in Ingoldsby Legends (1842) 189: No sooner, however, were they / Put to bed with a spade by the sexton, / Than he carried the darlings away.
[Ire]Waterford Chron. 26 Aug. 1/5: How some of our ould friends [...] would stare at the notion o’ bein’ ‘put to bed with a spade’ [...] instead of havin’ a rowzin’ wake [etc.].
[US] ‘Hundred Stretches Hence’ in Matsell Vocabulum 124: With shovels they were put to bed / A hundred stretches since!
[US]Wheeling Dly Intelligencer (VA) 9 June 3/3: Ttry your strong Government and a Dictator, of you dare. The former will be broken up [...] and the latter will be put to bed with a spade and pick.
‘Hands off’ [broadside ballad] – Some fine day, when I’m laid in the clay. Put to bed with a spade in the usual way [F&H].
[US]Northern Trib. (Cheboygan, MI) 5 Nov. 3/1: When he is buried he is [...] ‘put to bed with a shovel’.
[Aus]‘Lela’ in Maitland Mercury (Aus./NSW) 31 Mar. 2: The arch gonnoff is dusty, you’d better wish. If he rats you are a prate roost, you’ll get put to bed with a shovel.
[Aus]Oakleigh Leader (Nth Brighton, Vic.) 3 Sept. 45/5: The last event which happens to all alike [...] is described as ‘wearing a wooden ovecoat’ and being ‘put to bed with a shovel’.
[Aus]C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 62: Put to Bed with a Spade or Shovel, buried.
[US]Sun (NY) 10 July 29/4: Here is a genuine letter written in thieves’ slang, recently found by the English police [...] I met an old flame [...] that I thought was put to bed with a spade and shovel stretches ago.
[US]A.H. Lewis Confessions of a Detective 30: Your one chance to put them away, so they’ll stay, is to put them to bed with a shovel.
Topeka State Jrnl 13 Sept. 9/4: The old bug was gone — had been taken to the hillside and ‘put to bed with a spade’.
[US]Eve. Star (Washington, DC) 13 Sept. 18/1: The bully they take to the dump on the hill, and put him to bed with a spade.
[US]L. Pound ‘Amer. Euphemisms for Dying’ in AS XI:3 198: Put to bed with a shovel.
[US](con. 1940–60s) Décharné Straight from the Fridge Dad.